Biliary tract cancer (BTC) is a rare but highly aggressive malignancy that includes intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, and gallbladder cancer (GBC). While BTC has a low global incidence, its regional variations are notable. Among nations, Korea has the second-highest incidence of BTC globally, with the highest mortality rate worldwide, underscoring the need for a deeper understanding of this cancer. Liver fluke infection and hepatitis B virus infection are key risk factors unique to Korea, contributing to regional differences in BTC incidence. Additionally, genomic alterations in Korean patients with BTC differ from those in other populations, including lower frequencies of IDH1 mutations and FGFR2 fusions in ICC and a higher prevalence of ERBB2 amplification in GBC. Recognizing the clinical significance of these alterations, ivosidenib and pemigatinib have been approved in Korea for BTC patients with IDH1 mutations and FGFR2 fusions, respectively. This review explores the epidemiology, risk factors, and molecular features of BTC, along with corresponding targeted therapies. Furthermore, we compare the unique characteristics of BTC in Korea with global data to inform future research and clinical practice.

Biliary tract cancer (BTC) is a rare but highly aggressive malignancy that includes intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, and gallbladder cancer (GBC). While BTC has a low global incidence, its regional variations are notable. Among nations, Korea has the second-highest incidence of BTC globally, with the highest mortality rate worldwide, underscoring the need for a deeper understanding of this cancer. Liver fluke infection and hepatitis B virus infection are key risk factors unique to Korea, contributing to regional differences in BTC incidence. Additionally, genomic alterations in Korean patients with BTC differ from those in other populations, including lower frequencies of IDH1 mutations and FGFR2 fusions in ICC and a higher prevalence of ERBB2 amplification in GBC. Recognizing the clinical significance of these alterations, ivosidenib and pemigatinib have been approved in Korea for BTC patients with IDH1 mutations and FGFR2 fusions, respectively. This review explores the epidemiology, risk factors, and molecular features of BTC, along with corresponding targeted therapies. Furthermore, we compare the unique characteristics of BTC in Korea with global data to inform future research and clinical practice.

Biliary tract cancer (BTC) is a rare but highly aggressive malignancy that includes intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, and gallbladder cancer (GBC). While BTC has a low global incidence, its regional variations are notable. Among nations, Korea has the second-highest incidence of BTC globally, with the highest mortality rate worldwide, underscoring the need for a deeper understanding of this cancer. Liver fluke infection and hepatitis B virus infection are key risk factors unique to Korea, contributing to regional differences in BTC incidence. Additionally, genomic alterations in Korean patients with BTC differ from those in other populations, including lower frequencies of IDH1 mutations and FGFR2 fusions in ICC and a higher prevalence of ERBB2 amplification in GBC. Recognizing the clinical significance of these alterations, ivosidenib and pemigatinib have been approved in Korea for BTC patients with IDH1 mutations and FGFR2 fusions, respectively. This review explores the epidemiology, risk factors, and molecular features of BTC, along with corresponding targeted therapies. Furthermore, we compare the unique characteristics of BTC in Korea with global data to inform future research and clinical practice.

The effectiveness of closed drainage tube insertion after low anterior resection has been controversial. We believe that drain tube displacement, which occurs up to 35% in real clinical practice, reduces the effectiveness of the drain tube. We report in this video a simple way to secure the drain tube in the pelvic cavity after low anterior resection and introduce a case that used the drain fixation method and treated anastomotic leakage without interventional procedure.

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection is known as the main factor for cervical cancer which is a leading cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. Because there are more than 100 types in HPV, it is critical to discriminate the HPVs related with cervical cancer from those not related with it. In this paper, the risk type of HPVs using their textual explanation. The important issue in this problem is to distinguish false negatives from false positives. That is, we must find high-risk HPVs as many as possible though we may miss some low-risk HPVs. For this purpose, the AdaCost, a cost-sensitive learner is adopted to consider different costs between training examples. The experimental results on the HPV sequence database show that the consideration of costs gives higher performance. The improvement in F-score is higher than that of the accuracy, which implies that the number of high-risk HPVs found is increased.
Classification* ; Data Mining* ; Female ; Humans* ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms

Inversion, one of the balanced rearrangements, usually does not lead to phenotypic abnormalities; all genetic information exists in the proper amount, merely in a different order or in an abnormal location. However, offspring of an inversion carrier is at risk of chromosomal imbalance because an inversion loop can be formed during crossing-over of the paternal and the maternal chromosomes in meiosis. We report a 38-year-old woman with inversion and balanced translocation and her fetus with unusual rearrangement causing chromosomal imbalance. We performed conventional cytogenetic analysis, MLPA, and subtelomeric FISH in the cells of the embryo. The results showed that the distal portion of chromosome 13q was added to the terminal portion of chromosome 9p during crossing-over. Therefore, the final karyotype of the fetus was 46,XY,rec(9)t(9;13)(p22;q32)inv(9)(p12q13)mat, confirmed using molecular-cytogenetic analyzing tools.
Adult ; Cytogenetic Analysis ; Embryonic Structures ; Female ; Fetus ; Humans ; Karyotype ; Meiosis ; Pregnancy

This erratum is being published to correct the printing error on page 517 of the article. Corrections for Fig. 1 and main text in page 519 are needed. The authors apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.

Purpose: We aimed to develop a novel mortality scoring system for inpatients with COVID-19 based on simple demographic factors and laboratory findings. Materials and Methods: We reviewed and analyzed data from patients who were admitted and diagnosed with COVID-19 at 10 hospitals in Daegu, South Korea, between January and July 2020. We randomized and assigned patients to the development and validation groups at a 70% to 30% ratio. Each point scored for selected risk factors helped build a new mortality scoring system using Cox regression analysis. We evaluated the accuracy of the new scoring system in the development and validation groups using the area under the curve. Results: The development group included 1232 patients, whereas the validation group included 528 patients. In the development group, predictors for the new scoring system as selected by Cox proportional hazards model were age ≥70 years, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, dementia, C-reactive protein levels >4 mg/dL, infiltration on chest X-rays at the initial diagnosis, and the need for oxygen support on admission. The areas under the curve for the development and validation groups were 0.914 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.891–0.937] and 0.898 (95% CI 0.854–0.941), respectively. According to our scoring system, COVID-19 mortality was 0.4% for the low-risk group (score 0–3) and 53.7% for the very high-risk group (score ≥11). Conclusion We developed a new scoring system for quickly and easily predicting COVID-19 mortality using simple predictors. This scoring system can help physicians provide the proper therapy and strategy for each patient.

Purpose: Globally, concerns have grown regarding the long-term effects of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection. Therefore, we evaluated the long-term course of persistent symptoms and patient quality of life. Materials and Methods: This prospective cohort study was conducted at a single tertiary university hospital from August 31, 2020 to March 29, 2021 with adult patients followed at 6 and 12 months after acute COVID-19 symptom onset or diagnosis. Clinical characteristics, self-reported symptoms, EuroQol 5 dimension 5 level (EQ5D-5L) index scores, Korean version of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Korean version of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-5 (PCL-5-K), and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) were investigated. Symptom persistent or non-persistent groups were defined according to persistency of COVID-19 related symptoms or signs after acute COVID-19 infection, respectively. Results: Of all 235 patients, 170 (64.6%) patients were eligible for analysis. The median age was 51 (interquartile range, 37–61) years old, and 102 patients were female (60.0%). After 12 months from acute COVID-19 infection, in total, 83 (48.8%) patients still suffered from COVID-19-related symptoms. The most common symptoms included amnesia (24.1%), insomnia (14.7%), fatigue (13.5%), and anxiety (12.9%). Among the five EQ5D-5L categories, the average value of anxiety or depression was the most predominant. PHQ-9 and PCL-5-K scores were statistically higher in the COVID-19–related symptom persistent group than the non-persistent group (p=0.001). However, GAD-7 scores showed no statistical differences between the two groups (p=0.051). Conclusion Neuropsychiatric symptoms were the major COVID-19–related symptoms after 12 months from acute COVID-19 infection, reducing quality of life.